The David Kilcullen Collection (merged thread)

[Bill Moore]

Marc,

I don't think we should use Iraq as "the" example, because the conflict there is far beyond a simple, or even complex insurgency. By the DoD definition I guess it falls under the category of lawlessness, so we're doing COIN, but the country is in such disaray that traditional COIN approaches are too little, too late. My biggest concern isn't Iraq, but rather that we draw the wrong lessons from Iraq when we get involved in COIN missions in the future. I'm concerned we'll hear, oh we can't do that, we tried it in Iraq and it didn't work. The fact is we tried it after we lost the high moral ground, so of course it didn't work. Our national leadership didn't understand the nature of the war they getting in, and now we're trying to play catch up, and the reality is a lot of these tactics won't work once you're past the credibility tipping point.

Iraq was complex to begin with (although that seemed to be a conveniently disreguarded fact during planning). Some of the larger issues is the ethnic make up, the uncooperative neighbors (that's putting it politely), the multiple insurgencies, multiple criminal gangs, ineffective economy, massive unemployment, civil war, transnationals, limitless munitions, all topped off with a cherry on top known to us as the Iraqi government, but I doubt many in Iraq see it that way. We walked in to this with our eyes wide open, there are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

Quite simply, war doesn't have to be the way in the future. Iraq could have looked much different if we engaged our brains first before committing our military. I think there is a timing or phasing issue with COIN TTP that we haven't discussed much, but if we started this war focused on the Iraqi people from day one, and fought to maintain the moral high ground instead of just taking ground, we may have been able to pull this one off.

I think our COIN doctrine has merit, and would work if applied correctly from day one in numerous countries inflected with insurgencies. I think we have to pull the population away from the insurgency to the government, and if you can't do that you can't win.

[marct]

Hi Bill,

I've got to agree with most of what you have said. In many ways, Iraq isn't the real issue or a good test of current doctrines. You are quite right that the por initial planning has led to a SNAFU situation <sigh>. Right now, in a lot of ways, I would almost prefer to concentrate on Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa as places where we can still win and win well.

Marc

[zenpundit]

Dr. Marc wrote:

"It's a corollary of 4GW that is implicit in the shift to the Information Age <shrug>. In a lot of ways, it really stems from the question of "how do I [read any individual] get meaning in the current economic system?" We don't get it from working on farms or in factories any more, and they produce far more in the way of tangible goods than can ever be used, so we have to look for "meaning" in other directions, and fundamentalist style religions are one of the ways people have gone."

Issues of psychological identity and the political legitimacy of entities competing for allegience. The ability to provide for material needs figures in ( say -Hezbollah among rural Lebanese Shiites) but it is only part of the package for cultivating primary loyalties. The slow speed of the modern state is becoming a significant disadvantage ( ex. Katrina) vis-a-vis highly motivated, nimble, non-state rivals.

[Bill Moore]

http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/i...nes.php?page=1

Today, a crucial but little-known battle in the expanding war on terror is under way on Jolo Island. Designed to "wage peace," as Linder says, it's an innovative, decidedly nonviolent approach by which U.S. military personnel—working with aid agencies, private groups and Philippine armed forces—are trying to curtail terrorist recruitment by building roads and providing other services in impoverished rural communities. The effort, known to experts as "the Philippines model," draws on a "victory" on the Philippine island of Basilan, where U.S. forces in 2002 ended the dominance of Abu Sayyaf without firing so much as a single shot. "It's not about how many people we shoot in the face," Linder said. "It's about how many people we get off the battlefield."

On Jolo, U.S. military engineers have dug wells and constructed roads that allow rural farmers for the first time to transport their produce to markets. This past June, the Mercy, a U.S. Navy hospital ship, visited Jolo and other islands to provide medical and dental care to 25,000 people, many of whom had never seen a doctor. American military medical and veterinary teams have held mobile clinics, where Special Forces, speaking native Tausug and Tagalog, gathered information from local residents as they consulted on agriculture and engineering projects. American soldiers are even distributing a comic book designed for ethnic Tausug teenage boys thought to be at risk of being recruited by Abu Sayyaf. The story, Barbangsa: Blood of the Honorable, tells of a fictional young sailor named Ameer who defeats pimply-faced terrorists threatening his Philippine homeland.

We can do it when we maintain the moral high ground with the right people, the right strategy, and patience. There isn't a whole of sexy stuff taking place here, but the focus is on the people, and it is working ever so slowly.

[jcustis]

I think our COIN doctrine has merit, and would work if applied correctly from day one in numerous countries inflected with insurgencies. I think we have to pull the population away from the insurgency to the government, and if you can't do that you can't win.

I like this point Bill, but I'm afraid we cannot pull the population away from the insurgency for a simple reason, and that is the fact that we do not control the ground.

We need an infusion of boots on the ground, to put more eyes on the population (i.e. owning every street corner). The top generals are likely right, and any upsurge in troop levels is irrelevant if we cannot keep our mind on the mission after we have defined their purpose.

Everytime I see an Iraqi on the street interviewed on the MSM, their central concern is security, security, security. To many average Iraqis, we must seem terribly impotent because the IEDs and SVBIEDs continue to kill and maim. I can't blame any Iraqi for not hearing us out on our IO message, because the most powerful message are the bodies turning up in morgues and IP recruiting center explosions.

I too think we are past the point of using civil affairs projects as carrots. We are in the middle of a terrible Catch-22 right now. If force levels don't increase, we cannot afford to bolster Baghdad at the expense of outlying areas, because the bad guys will simply leak out to lesser secured areas and continue their program of death. We need to start smothering that place like a blanket.

As for turning terrs, I don't think there can be any success unless we achieve significant religious cooperation. We need to "un-indoctrinate" these detained/captured knuckle-heads that the bloodshed goes against the Quran (are there references to that fact?). When you have guys willing to drive an explosive-laden car into the midst of a busy farmers market, I think that you've got to reverse that bad seed through religion.

Are we attacking the root of the problem from the wrong angle?

[Jedburgh]

...Everytime I see an Iraqi on the street interviewed on the MSM, their central concern is security, security, security. To many average Iraqis, we must seem terribly impotent because the IEDs and SVBIEDs continue to kill and maim. I can't blame any Iraqi for not hearing us out on our IO message, because the most powerful message are the bodies turning up in morgues and IP recruiting center explosions...

That's been their central concern from the beginning. I interviewed dozens of Iraqis in throughout '03 and '04 - and they were all frustrated (to put it very mildly) at our abject failure to impose basic physical security in their nation's capital. At the time, they were dealing with a massive upsurge in rapes, murders, kidnappings, and plain ol' property crimes. Many, adhering to the usual Middle Eastern penchant for conspiracy theories, were struggling to figure out a reason why we were purposefully allowing it to go on. It ain't too hard to figure out the general trend in public opinion as the violence in Baghdad has not only continued, but significantly ratchets up in brutality.

...I too think we are past the point of using civil affairs projects as carrots. We are in the middle of a terrible Catch-22 right now. If force levels don't increase, we cannot afford to bolster Baghdad at the expense of outlying areas, because the bad guys will simply leak out to lesser secured areas and continue their program of death. We need to start smothering that place like a blanket.

As for turning terrs, I don't think there can be any success unless we achieve significant religious cooperation. We need to "un-indoctrinate" these detained/captured knuckle-heads that the bloodshed goes against the Quran (are there references to that fact?). When you have guys willing to drive an explosive-laden car into the midst of a busy farmers market, I think that you've got to reverse that bad seed through religion.

Are we attacking the root of the problem from the wrong angle?

JC, this deserves a much lengthier and well-thought out response; it being late, I'm not going to try right now. I know we've gone around this one a few times on SWC, but I definitely want to talk more to this topic later...

[Bill Moore]

I would add there also needs to be a government in place to pull the people towards.

The RAND study Jedburgh posted stated that many insurgencies are due to the gap created by modernization, where a number of folks are left out of the new emerging economic models, so the objectives are to provide security for the people and to convince the people that the government is working in their interest.

When you do a regime change, you create an entirely different set of problems. First, we stood up a government (yes it was elected, and yes it was a miracle that we could pull that off), but it a foreign form of government (democracy) in a land where there is little trust, and BTW it is still at war. Talk about a gap!

As you stated we first have to provide security, an incredibly tough task in its own right. Then we have to sell this government, and after the recent fiasco with Saddam's hanging I wonder if that will be possible. If it isn't, then where do we take it from here? Another regime change? Stay the course?

[jcustis]

Then we have to sell this government, and after the recent fiasco with Saddam's hanging I wonder if that will be possible.

Oh yes, talk about an IO nightmare. Think anyone got fired over the decision to step aside and allow the IZ govt. to "handle" the execution?

I have to agree with FM's point about analyzing our weaknesses across the warfighting functions and political-military efforts, because I fear the bad guys are going to start attacking them with greater fervor.

[marct]

I would add there also needs to be a government in place to pull the people towards.

I think that this is a key problem that has to be kept in mind for any future operations. I would add in one other characteristic: the "government" must also be "worthy" of loyalty (i.e. be more likely to create a pull factor than a push factor). This doesn't mean that it has to be a "democracy", however that may be construed. France, Germany, the US, Canada and Sibgapore are all "democracies" and they all have quite different forms.

The RAND study Jedburgh posted stated that many insurgencies are due to the gap created by modernization, where a number of folks are left out of the new emerging economic models, so the objectives are to provide security for the people and to convince the people that the government is working in their interest.

I think that this has to be a consideration, but it also has to be kept in focus. Given current manufacturing capabilities, "modernization" is an interesting problem. I'm not convinced that the gap is based around emerging economic models so much as it is based around emerging models of individual livelihood; and no, they are not the same thing .

When you do a regime change, you create an entirely different set of problems. First, we stood up a government (yes it was elected, and yes it was a miracle that we could pull that off), but it a foreign form of government (democracy) in a land where there is little trust, and BTW it is still at war. Talk about a gap!

Yup. And it is a very different case from most of the "classic" COIN situations. My question, and it can only be really answered after 10-20 years, is what type of government will it become?

As you stated we first have to provide security, an incredibly tough task in its own right. Then we have to sell this government, and after the recent fiasco with Saddam's hanging I wonder if that will be possible. If it isn't, then where do we take it from here? Another regime change? Stay the course?

That is the $64,000 question <wry grin>. As far as international politics is concerned, the US just doesn't have the political capital to do another regime change, at least openly. "Sell" the government? Getting harder to do as a result of the way the hanging was carried out. "Provide security"? I doubt it could be done unless there was another 100k people on the ground.

I think that the most workable, not necessarily the "best" under any definition of that term, option would be to stabilize local areas and sell local governments and the broader ideology of "civilized discourse" vs. "civil war by despotic whim". Ultimately, the legitimacy of any Iraqi regime depends on the people of Iraq.

Marc